"A Committee of Correspondence"

27 April 2014

Open Thread - 27 April, 2014

A photograph of a Catholic school in Aleppo, Syria in Ottoman times. This was the College of the Holy Land in Aleppo. That is St. Anthony's statue in the center. The Ottoman sultan/caliph was a financial supporter of the school. The sultan's "tughra" (stylized signature) can be seen in the foreground of the picture. The school was run by the ever present Franciscans. In the background on an escutcheon you can see the insignia of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher, another supporter of the school. pl

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The following comment in the NYT review of Elizabeth Warren's book says it all:

A telling anecdote involves a dinner that Ms. Warren had with Lawrence H. Summers, then the director of the National Economic Council and a top economic adviser to President Obama. The dinner took place in the spring of 2009, after the oversight panel had produced its third report, concluding that American taxpayers were at far greater risk to losses in TARP than the Treasury had let on.

After dinner, “Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice,” Ms. Warren writes. “I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticize other insiders.

Why weep? It is what we have been talking here all along. It is ironic that speech was for a public sector pension conference seeing that the elites want to do away with all pensions.

Great take on sanctions:

"Many such responses involve sanctions, always the first refuge of political poseurs. Sanctions are useless except as part of an active bargaining process, but they are now commonly imposed as a politically more correct substitute for diplomatic dialogue and negotiation. Such punitive measures are no substitute at all for diplomacy. They usually have little or no effect on the government they are ostensibly intended to influence, except to get its back up.

Sanctions do, of course, provide a convenient way for politicians to show outrage, seem to be doing something, and avoid a debate about their own responsibility for whatever happened.. They make sure they have no stake in the private trade and investment ties they are disrupting. Sanctions shove the costs of foreign policy failures onto businesses, workforces, and consumers in the country imposing them as well as those in the society on which they are imposed. They are typically then evaluated in terms of the pain they inflict, not the behavior they induce."

Thank you for posting this link. Freeman's talk is a brilliant analysis of the world we find ourselves living in. As a bonus one gets some beautiful phrasing sprinkled throughout.

I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand where we are today, how we got here, and also get a sense of where we are being taken.

I don't know if you meant it in that way, but it really is cause for us all, and not just Americans, to weep at his not being allowed to serve his country in that critical position (and thereby inject some sanity into its assessments and policies).

Someone explain to this traveler from another time what it is that Sterling has done that is illegal. I have not heard any mention of ACTIONS of his that were detrimental to Blacks in connection with the team. What he did was talk to this airhead in private and for that he is being forced to sell his equity in the team? There are strong precedents in US law for the right to hateful speech both private and public. This is not Europe with its ban on all things Nazi. I watched Gwen Ifill and Donna Brazile discuss this on Candy Crowley's morning show. (She is gaining weight again)The sub-text of the discussion was the need for "dialogue" on race. The problem is that what Blacks generally mean by this is a one sided (their side) chance to harangue Whites who meekly submit to this thrashing. Another sub-text for this chat was the idea that people are not allowed to have such thoughts even within the confines of their skulls. pl

He hasn't done anything that is illegal. Sterling is a jerk in more ways than simply this. For years a number of people have known his views and I include his players. Hurt feelings notwithstanding didn't prevent them from crying all the way to the bank.

This should be noted, too. Sterling doesn't just say ugly things about blacks. He doesn't care for whites either and won't hire them for his team. No one has brought this up in the media. What all this is about is cultural Marxism

America will truly be a free country when a person can say whatever the hell he wants and the worst that can happen to him is to be guilty of bad manners. His livelihood or his overall reputation cannot be destroyed as has happened to better men than Sterling by groups like the ADL or the $PLC that specialized in character assassination.

Having written this I have no sympathy for Sterling because he has through his donations to the NAACP and other leftwing organizations helped enable the very people who are raising the most hell about this. Talk about being hoisted by one's own petard!

This country is about personal freedom and liberty in the context of limited collectivist control. I don't care what an ugly man Sterling may be. What I care about is his right as a US citizen to say whatever he bloody pleases to say. pl

Why the press, Hollywood, civil rights leaders and politicians are behind this witch hunt is a good question. If it's okay for TMZ to release this edited recording of a private conversation (that hasn't been confirmed by either party) of a billionaire and his mistress then why stop there? Why aren't these modern day mccarthyites as outraged and concerned about teachers, principles, college professors and yes students. All they need to do is demand Facebook and others get to work crunching the data so they can use the same social pressures against those people.

Surely the politicians so up in arms about this will continue this principled stand and let private companies record any conversation anywhere at any time. I wonder if Sterling has any friends at the ACLU. I can only imagine the group of people who are going to get sued in a civil suit over Sterling's financial losses, not to mention mental anguish over his rights being violated. If they get away with this imagine what they'll do to someone with no power, money or connections.

Last night there was a show about minorities on television. A number of famous Black comedians talked about the popularity of Amos and Andy and the brilliance of the comedians who played them. The sad part is the NAACP had the network pull the show because they say it perpetuated negative stereotypes. Think Archie Bunker. Ethnic nationalist powers are always willing to limit the voices they don't approve of by destroying their careers.

If people want to boycott Sterling's games, fine, but institutionalizing thought crimes undermines the foundation of our country.

I happen to agree with you, sir. I noted above that what he did isn't illegal. It is protected under the 1st amendment.

What was that Voltaire said about defending one's right to free speech while disagreeing with the content?

What I was doing was to point out what I consider to be hypocrisy from those doing the most complaining. If they are going to get onto him for this they need to do exactly the same for the other stuff. Of course they won't, either because they are ignorant or they are cultural Marxists.

A short article on how Polio in Pakistan is making a comeback, because of threats against health-care workers.

Many Pakistani leaders are suspicious of vaccination drives because the US perverted this medically essential process in order to steal blood samples from Abbottabad's citizens in an effort to determine whether BinLaden or his relatives were living there.

Other countries are undoubtedly and (unfortunately) justifiably suspicious of all Western health care initiatives in their countries now.

Many facets of foreign policy of the US have been subsumed by military considerations. This has its origins in a weak president and congress in all areas of foreign policy save military engagements. You can argue that the military is undermining foreign policy, and is actually making America and the world weaker.

If "getting" Bin Laden means polio becomes prevalent in poor, unstable countries suspicious of US interests, then there's a strong case to be made that it wasn't worth getting him. In particular, ask yourself the question 20 years from now, when Bin Laden will surely be dead of old age, but with Polio alive and infectious in Pakistan, and still a cause of strife between the two countries.